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All photos courtesy of PALM Health
PALM Health's founders: (L to R) Robert Munsch, MD, Claude Dal Farra, Lauren Munsch Dal Farra, MD, and Brice Dal Farra.
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The fitness center.
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Photos courtesy of PALM
PALM's Thermal Suites include aromatic steam rooms and infrared saunas for cleansing and detoxification.
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Branches in the ceiling contribute to PALM's natural, relaxing atmosphere.
The light fixtures are made of pink Himalayan rock salt (“to offset the wifi and computers,” the founder explains), and they’re all dimmable. Exam tables are lovely padded massage beds that convert; no hard, cold surfaces here. On staff are a cardiologist, a neurologist, a psychiatrist, and two internists, one with additional training in allergies and endocrinology—and they talk about chi, and the root causes of illness, and the intricate interplay of genes, biology, environment, emotions, thoughts, and lifestyle.
What is this place?
Housed in the old Busch’s Grove space on Clayton Road, PALM Health is the brainchild of Dr. Lauren Munsch Dal Farra, a St. Louis cardiologist. And she’s pretty sure it’s the only center of its kind in the world. The acronym stands for Personalized Advanced Lifestyle Medicine—meaning that with concierge practices, the physicians can take time to really know their patients.
Traditional medicine’s perfunctory clinical “How are you doing?” becomes “How are you feeling, thinking, eating, moving, healing?”
Courtesy of PALM
The Ionized Himalayan Salt Therapy Room lets patients breathe in negative ions to help with sinus, lung or skin problems in a beautiful setting.
And if a change in lifestyle is in order, the support’s built in. Instead of saying, “You’re at high risk for a heart attack any minute now, so find a gym fast and start eating heart-healthy,” Dal Farra can say, “Let’s set you up with a personal trainer, get a cardio and metabolic assessment, and establish a fitness plan. Then you can meet with a well-being coach to learn stress reduction techniques and chat with the nutritionist to understand what you should eat. After your next appointment, there’s a class in healthy gourmet cooking you might want to take. And you should also schedule a stress-relieving massage with one of our therapists—I want you to make self-care a priority. I’ll meet with all your wellness providers, follow your progress, and work with them to tailor your plan.”
Beginning May 9, PALM will offer a luxurious array of spa services. Think aromatherapy steam room with colored light, brown seaweed wraps, black sand scrubs, thermal mud massages, a citrus and kale body polish, an arctic berry peel…
Lockers are pale wood, huge showers have frosted glass doors, and the whole place feels sunlit, graced with cacti and cooled by dispensers of water infused with clementines and green apples.
But don’t come expecting only luxury, Dal Farra warns, because this place is about healing as well as prevention. There are IV treatments for cancer support, a salt room that eases respiratory and skin issues, a cryosauna that freezes out joint and muscle pain, an infrared sauna that penetrates deeper than conventional saunas and can ease soreness and lower blood pressure. Coaching and classes address every aspect of life: healthy gourmet cooking, gardening with healthy soil, fitness, relationships, work, personality, self-knowledge, emotional calm, balance, posture, breathing, cardio exercise, dance, mental clarity, graceful aging, art as therapy, poetry as self-expression, and more.
A total-package membership gives you unlimited access to all of this for $3,300 a year. But Dal Farra wants to make PALM affordable on almost any budget, so there’s a core annual membership for $300 that gets your foot in the door and includes a health risk and goal screening with a certified health coach and ten services or classes. The physicians’ fees are covered by several major health insurance plans.
On May 2, PALM’s hours expand to 5 a.m. – 9 p.m.
